Adidas Spezial: elevating the trainer to new heights

Follow the author of this article

As L.P. Hartley would never have written, the fast is another country, they do things differently there. I know this to be true because I spent some time this month in an Austrian spa resort doing the cure. Not quite fasting perhaps, but not far off. Not so much calorie-controlled as denied: all in the pursuit of a cleaner gut, but with a deleterious effect on one’s energy levels, certainly.

Which itself struck a rather ironic note given the assembled dress codes. Arrivals, departees and out-of-towners were easy to spot: these were dressed in the prevailing mood for “judicious informal”. The rest of us ran the gamut from the courtesy bath-robed to a phalanx of athleisure aficionados, determined to fly the flag for the brief held truce currently underway between sportswear and sartorial flair.

Adidas Spezial trainers

But truth be told, bathrobes are best retained for trips to and from the bathroom, leaving athletic brands alone to stand for “correct attire” in such environments. Here, Nike and Under Armour, had certainly found their fanbase. But one brand owned rather more of the work-out waterfront, so to speak: Adidas. Of the ubiquitous three-stripes there was plenty, but no one stood more proudly to attention as the various herbal tinctures were handed out than myself in Adidas Spezial, the sartorialist’s take on sportswear, created by Gary Aspden as an alternative to its more flammable and less fashion-forward brethren.

Adidas Spezial trainers

For several years now, Aspden has plumbed the archive at Adidas’ HQ to locate and reanimate historic pieces with a tailored twist – bringing back to life, say, the presentation suits worn by the German national teams in the Sixties and Seventies using state-of-the-art fabrication techniques (and a little Savile Row know-how courtesy of Carlo Brandelli).

But this season, he’s enlisted the help of reggae’s latest star, Chronixx, to promote a range of on- and off-field pieces that talk to a more contemporary feeling entirely in-step with the general move towards sportswear as the true north of genuine street style.

Chronixx in the campaign for the new range

It’s a canny association: in contrast to many of his peers and recent contemporaries, Chronixx, eschews the lifestyle enshrined in much dancehall, preferring instead to reflect the "consciousness" evident in pioneers such as Bob Marley. In return, Marley’s love of football (and concomitant adoption of its dress codes) is reflected in the singer’s choice of outfit – and support for Arsenal.

In true Spezial style, however, many of the pieces worn by Chronixx in the Jamaica-shot video that accompanies the collection have already sold out, reinforcing how on the money Aspden’s approach has been. Then again, such limited runs ensure that in the over-endowed field of sportwear, Adidas Spezial stands for something, well, a little bit special.